Thursday morning was smooth-sailing as we got our car from the garage, packed up, and prepared to leave Porto. We absolutely love that beautiful city and could “will” be back! We were sad to leave Porto.. and also Steve & Jen, who drove south the same day. It was great exploring together. As Jen noted, we walked over ten miles over the course of a few days just while being touristy and going to restaurants. Those are ten+ miles way up and way down too- Porto is very hilly!

We drove north to Braga, whose agglomerated urban area is the third most populated in Portugal. Umm.. yeah that’s a highly qualified reference! It’s a medium city at best and that is OK. It’s known for its religious heritage and university scene. It is packed with Christian and monastic idols, and has the oldest cathedral in Portugal. There’s a nice old pedestrian-only cobblestone area like so many old European cities, and all sorts of cafes and fashion stores. Turns out Braga is considered the entrepreneurial and technological center of the country and filled with young people which go hand-in-hand.

Once parked, one of the first things we came across was this garden with manicured beds. As you have seen I (Savitri) love taking pictures of flowers. Looks like it dedicated to Dr. Jose Salgado – need to look him up.

We also came across this cool plaza and park on the way to lunch. Our goal (which we accomplished) was to have lunch at this bookstore called Livraria Centésima Página with a garden cafe in the back that I read about in Lonely Planet Portugal as Jesse drove to Braga.

After a great lunch of simple but tasty sandwiches with salads and desserts (of course!) in this quaint and cozy bookstore, we decided to finish the last leg of our trip to Vieira do Minho.

We arrived at Casa d’ Henrique right around the check in time. We very pleasantly surprised with the spa facilities and our apartment considering we paid 70 EU per night. The owner explained to me in Spanish (there’s little Spanish and very little English out here, especially among adults) that he only opened it 3 months ago and it had taken 3 years to build. He did a really nice job. It was the perfect little apartment for Jesse and me. Aside for 2 days, we have been with friends for 5 weeks. These are our last 2 weeks and we will spending them together hiking at 2 national parks (stay tuned) and parks in Mafra outside of Lisbon. We have to get back in shape!

We settled in quickly, used the spa facilities (ah ….) then we drove 15 minutes to a restaurant in the Pousada Canada Geres Hotel at the top of a hill looking out across the Cávado River Valley. Not only was the food delicious but the views were out of this world. We even got to watch the sunset from their balcony.

After dinner we had a short drive home and some blogging time now that we have high speed internet! If you have noticed, our blogging was falling way behind as the internet in the apartment in Porto was abysmal. Interesting that we are in the mountains and have great internet but it sucked in Porto. We missed you high speed ….